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Conversations with My Mind is here to create a space for curious, inclusive and sometimes anxious minds where we can think critically, learn together and grow our empathy towards each other. Together with local and international guests the podcast host Ance Vanaga explores various topics linked to mental health, inclusion & diversity and personal growth.
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The more time we spend online, the more thoughtful I become about how we approach connecting to this wonderful, virtual world. In the next two episodes, with the help of my guests, I will be exploring what impact an unsafe use of the internet can bring, what we should be aware of and how we could better navigate online to feel safer, more protected…
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Just a week ago, on the 4th of February, we marked an International World Cancer Day, a global initiative created to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. NHS in the UK currently states - 1 in 2 people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. But what does it really mean? Why is it becom…
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Nick Elston is one of the leading inspirational speakers on the lived experience of mental health. He is described as a big man with a big heart and a big story, who is incredibly honest. Nick strives to encourage individuals as well as businesses to engage and open up talking about mental health by showing how to harness the same energy that could…
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Paul Holbrook left his corporate career to become a leadership coach and in the process realised that almost everyone he talks to struggles with time. He decided to tackle this challenge by creating a self-leadership programme Diary Detox focusing on healthier distribution of time and published a book ‘What Are You Doing? The uncomfortable truth ab…
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Dean Allen is the kind of lecturer you’d like to have in your university - friendly, down to earth, all for encouraging everyone to use their critical thinking and a genuinely good person. He’s been building his career between the UK and South Africa, but in the past few years his heart and opportunities have grounded him and his family in the East…
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Brace yourself for laughter, disbelief, behind the scenes of making an Amazon Prime documentary and learning why someone most likely is a victim of cult tactics rather than a boss babe, if they have joined a multi-level marketing company. My guest on this episode is the one and only Roberta Blevins! If you are a documentary binge-watcher like mysel…
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A conversation with Karlis Streips has been on my mind since I decided to launch my own podcast. What held me back was finding the right moment and the right topic to speak about. Where does one start with such a living legend as Karlis? He is a journalist, who has influenced many political conversations in Latvia, has been a voice of The Eurovisio…
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On the day this episode is released it has been 91 days since Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. For three months Ukraine has been fighting with all it has to remain independent and democratic. The ongoing support it is receiving from all over the world, even from the previously neutral countries, says a lot about the importance of how…
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Mental health is no laughing matter. However, many of us who live with a mental illness, experience some mental health struggles or maybe have a neurodivergent brain will know that sometimes we just want to have a bit of a laugh about what our minds have come up with again. This is exactly what Frank King does. On his journey from a professional co…
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We know that the way we have been raised will impact the way we are as adults. A less known fact is that, if a mother does not heal her own emotional wounds, there is a high likelihood that her trauma can then be transferred onto her children, especially her daughters. I have invited a maternal narcissistic abuse recovery coach Michaila Tyson to he…
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Hypnotherapy and NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming, both have mixed reviews. Scientists say there is no scientific proof to back them up, however, practitioners focus on positive effects and bring forward a challenge that many aspects linked to our mind and will are yet to be proven. Psychology as a science is fairly new and still keeps developin…
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If you live in the UK, you probably have come across Tareena Shakil on the news or maybe on her ITV documentary. She was amongst the women groomed by ISIS and she made a decision to take her one-year-old son and travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. What she also did was quickly change her mind and risk her life to return to the UK. She got ar…
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I am back with the Season 2 of Conversations with My Mind and starting it in a similar manner as I did the first time around - with a very personal topic. When I was a student, I spent two summers in the United States selling books door to door and at the time I did not even realise my “summer internship” was actually me being a salesperson for a m…
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Conversations with My Mind is returning with a new season from the 23rd of February! This podcast is here to create a space for curious, inclusive and sometimes anxious minds where we can think critically, learn together and grow our empathy towards each other. I, your podcast host Ance Vanaga, am back ready to go even bigger. I want to challenge u…
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This is it - my final episode of Conversations with My Mind Season 1! I want to start by saying the biggest thank you to all of you for your listens, your support, your kind words, encouragement and lovely feedback you have shared with me. I cannot wait to see what the future will bring for this podcast! To make a full circle and finish where the e…
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My today's guest is Leah Chikamba, founder and CEO of the charity Angels of Hope for Women. Leah’s story is a wonderful example of how something that starts as one small act of kindness can grow into a community joining forces to make the world we live in a better and, most importantly, a more empathetic place. Angels of Hope for Women is providing…
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My today’s guest is Jennifer Merritt, a Life Coach and a Business Mentor with vast experience in the finance industry. Jennifer strongly believes that a healthy body and calm mind can always act and react better than an unrested one. As part of her coaching, she helps people find a way to take responsibility for their minds, bodies, actions, reacti…
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In the spirit of Black History Month my guests for this episode are Enoch Adeyemi and Joshua Adeyemi, leaders of the organisation Black Professionals Scotland. Besides leading a fast growing non-profit, Enoch and Joshua have both built successful careers in Scotland, founded a travel company Visit Nigeria Now and launched an Afro-Carribean online p…
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Joey Weber is the perfect next guest to explore the topic of mindfulness and meditation with. This time we dig a bit deeper to understand what mindfulness is on its own and answer the question Joey asked in his research: “is mindfulness enough?” Joey is someone who has spent his early years in a Tibetan monastic community and, as he says himself, t…
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My 11th episode is a heartfelt conversation with a fellow podcaster Chase Marks. He is the voice behind Bystanders Podcast, a mental health podcast telling stories from the perspective of partners, carers and professionals and also one of the voices behind We Don’t Do Deep Podcast, where mental health advocates take a break from the deep conversati…
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With episode 10 I am bringing not one, but two guests to talk about how to protect our mental health and have a healthy mindset while dating. I am welcoming a returning guest Laura Burke, my expert in therapeutic support and self care, to help our conversation from the mental health angle and Scotland’s very first matchmaker Laura Smyth, the founde…
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My guest Amanda Currie is a very talented and creative person, a music teacher and a musician in the Tinderbox Orchestra project. I invited her to this conversation because I wanted to learn what it means and how it feels to be neurodivergent, how it differs from living with mental health challenges and find out about her experience exploring life …
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Alex Reynolds is a highly skilled IT engineer with a soul of an artist and over 20 years of experience in meditation and mindfulness. Around 5 years ago he decided to introduce mindfulness in his workplace to help colleagues cope with the pressures of delivery. Since then the interest has snowballed and in the last 3 years alone Alex has given his …
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Amanda Lee is an actress, singer and photographer known to TikTok and Instagram as @mandapaints. She is spreading body positivity and standing up for weight inclusive medical care as her own story is proof that weight stigma can kill. A doctor praised her weight loss completely disregarding that the severe pain she was in was the reason she could n…
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Managing my personal finances and thinking about a future-proof investment plan has become the cause of my anxiety several times in life. While I am working on improving my relationship with money, taking bigger steps, such as making any kind of investment, has always seemed too far-fetched. Who is going to need my £100 (or some months even less)? …
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My 5th episode is a little bit different. It is a very real and a very personal story by Osayi Omoregie on navigating life as a black Londoner. He is genuinely kind and incredibly intelligent, but unfortunately, due to the biases still existing in the society, he now and again needs to prove or confirm both of these things simply because he exists …
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For my 4th episode I have invited Kit Carruthers, the Founder, Owner and Managing Director of Ninefold Distillery in Dalton, Dumfries and Galloway to share his personal story. Kit is kind, talented and very intelligent, and he also doesn’t mind speaking openly about his lifelong learning process. The conversation is very open, very honest and at ti…
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For my third episode I have invited Ketiwe Anjorin, who is an advocate for raising an inclusive generation of young people. She describes herself as someone with a huge passion for inspiring and facilitating positive social change. On her Instagram account Keti speaks about inclusion & diversity and shares brilliant ideas on how we can help young p…
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For episode 2 I have invited a guest expert Karen Gibb to discuss the impact of Covid-19 and lockdowns on young people, how to support them through their personal challenges and how we as adults can support young people’s mental and emotional health. Karen is a Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs Teacher and is experienced in counselling, Build…
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For my first episode I have invited Laura Burke, experienced mental health charity worker, expert in therapeutic support and self care, to speak about our personal mental health experiences and life as it is. In the conversation that took place in the 2nd UK lockdown we discuss the challenges of doing small talk, how our upbringing might have impac…
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Your podcast host Ance Vanaga shares her story and how she decided to grow her knowledge about mental and emotional health, empathy and inclusion and diversity on a more public platform. Learn about Ance's experience growing up in a post-soviet culture, her professional background and what lifelong learning means to her. Instagram: @conversations.w…
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